


Speechless

by M3zzaTh3M3z



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28129647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M3zzaTh3M3z/pseuds/M3zzaTh3M3z
Summary: Lei's trying hard to become a better person. Verity tries in her own way.
Relationships: Verity Cunningham/Lei Feng
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Speechless

**Author's Note:**

> This is for arionwind on tumblr for my 50 follower prize thing a million years ago! 
> 
> I started this way before Sea Change started so it doesn't fit with canon.

It’s late evening and, after the successful completion of a big job, Verity is curled up on the settee of her room in the Royal Station Hotel, gazing out at the golden light brushing the yellow stone buildings of Bath. In one hand is a medium glass of white wine, a usual piece in her post-job celebration. The other gently toys with Lei’s hair as she rests her head in her lap, a new addition. But a far from unwelcome one. 

It’s been a few months since Lei had turned up on her office doorstep with nothing but the clothes she stood in and a glint in her eye. A few weeks since they’d first kissed deep in the caves under Bristol, caught up in the excitement of finally uncovering the treasure they’d been hunting down. An hour or two since they’d sat down on this little settee and somehow over that time Lei had shifted closer and closer as they’d talked, before twisting around and laying her head on her without missing a beat. Verity had raised her eyebrows, but her hands found their way to her hair quite naturally. From the slight twitch of a smile on Lei’s lips and the way her eyes occasionally fall peacefully half-closed whenever there’s a lull, Verity surmises this is what she’s been angling for from the start. 

“Where did you get the clothes?” Verity suddenly asks.

Lei’s eyes open and she looks back up at her, too relaxed for confusion, slight interest at most. “Hm? These?”

Verity’s mind doesn’t just move fast. It often takes a different path to those around her, and sometimes it seems she spends half her life explaining to slow, plodding others the mental leaps that seem quite intuitive to her. Usually, Lei is one of the few that can keep up, and so when she’s in a good mood Verity doesn’t (much) begrudge her the rare occasions she does have to explain.

“No, no, I was at the tailor with you for those,” Verity says, waving her free hand. “I mean the ones you were wearing when you showed up at mine, in March. It was only a day or two after all that mess in Widdershins, you couldn’t have earned anything in that time. Pocket some gold from the bank, did you?”

She’d only meant it as a point of interest, another branch of lighthearted conversation, but Lei’s eyes instantly drop and she shifts, turning her face away. An all too familiar hole opens in Verity’s stomach, the one that means no matter her intentions, she’s said something she shouldn’t have to someone she - someone she wishes she hadn’t.

“No, I - I didn’t want to risk it,” Lei replies. “Sidney told me someone was binding the Sins or something, but I was afraid if I took anything it might somehow recall Greed. I picked handcuffs as soon as you gone and got out of there. Think I saw you heading down the road actually.”

Verity frowns. “Impossible.” Then she remembers this is Lei. “I know you’re good,” she adds, smoothing Lei’s hair, relieved to notice how she relaxes into the touch. “But my handcuffs are better than that.” She makes a mental note to check the handcuff design. Or leave the blueprints around where Lei will undoubtedly find and annotate them. “What did you do then?”

“I um. I went to the bathhouse to the South of town, I’m not sure of the name. I’d been to it when I first visited with Tim and it was the first place I thought of. Far away enough from the centre the Sins didn’t seem to have much effect, so I snuck into the changing rooms and, um. Just picked up something that seemed to fit. Figured it was best not to look like a criminal too long and with everything else going on that day I’m sure a few missing bits weren’t anyone’s top priority.” Lei sighs softly and shifts again, fingers fidgeting with some thin bits of wire scrounged up from any one of her numerous hidden pockets. “Hopefully.”

People… aren’t Verity’s strong suit, if she had to pick a slight tarnish in her own perfection. She can rely enough on her own skill that they don’t have to be. But occasionally there are people she wishes - well, people things would be a little easier with if she was a tad more… observant? Considerate? Whatever it was that would let her notice Benji wasn’t finding her jokes funny  _ before _ the tears threatened to fall, to let her stop needling Harriet  _ before _ she turned and snapped. That would let her find the right words, the ones that Lei needed to hear, the way Benji’s big tall blond friend, or -  _ ugh -  _ Sidney could. 

Verity isn’t Sidney. She can’t do the things he can. She can’t be the person he is. That was why he was with Harriet rather than her. 

But Sidney also isn’t her. That’s why  _ she’s _ the one Lei’s with. And neither of them are the type willing to settle for anything less than the best.

The best always have a few stories to tell. 

“Reminds me of my time in France,” Verity says, as casual as she can. “Though of course that was much more glamorous.”

The dangled line was a risk, but Verity senses Lei’s hesitant interest before she says, with more than a hint of derision, “Is that so.”

“I had infiltrated the country home of a Marquis as he was throwing his annual summer ball,” Verity continues, and as predicted a gleam of interest enters Lei’s eyes. She always loves to hear about riches and high society. “A certain Duchess I’m not at liberty to name hired me to retrieve some jewellery he had taken during a rigged game of cards. I predicted he would gift his ill gotten gains to his mistress during the ball, before returning to his Paris townhouse for the autumn, so this would be my best chance.”

“Surely when the mistress was travelling would have been the best time?”

Verity grins. “But then I would have missed the ball.”

Telling the story takes a little longer than Verity’s used to. When regaling other bounty hunters with her accomplishments (Verity doesn’t consider it bragging since it’s all true) she’s lucky if there’s anyone left in the room by the end (jealous, all of them.) And Benji will listen politely but has an irritating habit of frowning and making concerned noises whenever she mentions anything even just  _ slightly _ to the side of technically legal. And he never thinks to ask questions like Lei does.

Lei wants to know everything. All the time. She needs knowledge like air. Breathes out questions, breathes in information, repeat. But not slow and steady. In gasps. Like how a drowning man needs air. Verity can respect that.

She wants to know what the year was, what fashion were the dresses, what the security was, an awful lot of boring questions about magic, what equipment Verity had, every detail, all of which Verity is more than happy to provide.

It’s clear she picked the right story. Lei begins off skeptical, as she is of most of Verity’s tales, but she’s soon drawn in as Verity explains how she disguised herself, tailed the Marquis, picked locks, scaled ledges, sweet-talked servants, smoke bombed guards, and lifted the jewels from right under the mistress’s nose. She doesn’t exaggerate or embellish. She doesn’t need to.

“I had a carriage waiting for me just outside the gates,” she explains, in full swing now she’s bathing in the spotlight of Lei’s complete attention. Funny how much better that feels than a room full of jealous competitors. “But as I was making my way out, I noticed the guards were surreptitiously trying to cut me off. I changed direction and made for the stables. Inside, I found exactly what I was looking for.”

“What was it?” Lei asks, though Verity is sure she’s already worked that out.

“Well, nothing that I’d like to discuss in polite company,” Verity replies, raising an eyebrow. “But the important thing is by the time the guards caught up all the found was a rather drunk and lost noblewoman. The jewellery and my clothes remained hidden beneath the skirt and the fools actually escorted me to my carriage as they didn’t want to let me go by myself with a ‘dangerous criminal’ on the loose. Can you believe that?”

The smile fades from Lei’s face. “You stole.”

“The Marquis stole first! I was merely doing my job, exceptionally well I might add.”

“The woman who’s clothes you stole didn’t do anything though.”

Verity scoffs. “Everyone’s done  _ something _ . Besides, it was a hideous dress, nobody should be wearing a thing like that. Really I was doing her a favour.”

Sighing, Lei looks up at her. “Boss, why were you telling me this again?”

“My point is… my point is…” Verity flounders for a moment. Her anecdotes rarely had a point beyond the telling and she was unused to tying things together in a neat bow for someone else’s sake. She forges on anyway. “My point is you need to kick your exploits up a few notches before you can expect to impress someone like me with them. And I’m only Boss when we’re working, remember?”

Lei gives half a soft giggle. “You were speechless when I showed you my automatons. I don’t need to break the law to impress you.”

“You don’t need to be a saint either.”

The relaxed mood is broken once more. Lei sits up, blinking in confusion. “What do you--?”

“I know you take this ‘trying to be a good person’ thing very seriously, and if that’s what you want then I’m never going to stand in your way,” Verity says, and doesn’t even add a disclaimer for instances where she might really want to or need to for work. A bit of Lei’s morality overhaul might be rubbing off on her. She clasps Lei’s hands in her own. “But I already -- I already think you’re the best assistant I’ve ever had. The best partner,” she corrects herself. “I knew the worst of your past when I gave you my card. And I couldn’t even begin to imagine your potential. I already accepted all of it. What kind of a boss would I be if I held onto a grudge and judged you for all that anyway? What kind of a… girlfriend?”

The last word comes out as a question, unplanned, honestly mostly unthought of because the past few weeks have had a happy, dreamy glow Verity expected to evaporate any moment. 

Lei’s speechless for a moment and Verity braces for her to pull back, to get off the settee, pack her bags and disappear into the wind. Her mind races, already planning what she’ll say to Harriet when she asks how she’s driven off  _ yet another _ partner, how this time she’ll stick with working alone because it was no longer worth the trouble, when Lei leans forward and kisses her and all of Verity’s thoughts evaporate like morning mist in the autumn sun. 

When they break apart, Lei’s smiling, pale cheeks flushed, and Verity’s thoughts are yet to return. Lei’s grin widens and she laughs. “See?” she says, and happily settles down to her spot on Verity’s lap again. “Speechless.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Find me on @buggerup-busters on tumblr for Widdershins posts and DM me there to join our Widdershins discord <3


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